


in a sea of lights and glitter, she’s a savage she’s a shark

by bigchickcannibalistic



Series: there's a heartbeat under my skin [4]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, also, and how it works or doesn't, author has researched nothing so take that into consideration, because the author needed a reason for the scene to happen, but also wanted to explore a bit more about family, this basically spiraled from one scene, this went overboard real fast
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 07:58:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12228783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigchickcannibalistic/pseuds/bigchickcannibalistic
Summary: “I suppose we should finish our discussion,” Veronica says.Betty lets her hands slide down along Veronica’s back, deliberately keeping close to her spine. And if her fingers are particularly skittish along Veronica’s sides, she wouldn’t admit it for all the gold in the world. What she will admit shamelessly is how her fingers are teasing the ends of Veronica’s shirt, just over her belt; or how she’s deliberately keeping close to Veronica’s ear because that draws out a tantalising shiver.“Well if you insist,” Betty whispers. Right on cue a shiver wracks Veronica, punctuated but a forceful slap on Betty’s back.Or, more accurately, how Veronica handles the news that someone's trying to steal from her mother's business





	in a sea of lights and glitter, she’s a savage she’s a shark

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so the flu has caught me in its grips and basically reset the part of my brain that makes words word like I want them to word. Y'know.  
> But I said there'd be a new installment this month, so I compromised, and divided it into two parts. The next part'll be out as soon as my words get back to wording properly.  
> I do hope you guys'll like this part despite all of that. And as always thanks for checking it out.
> 
> Title from Miracle of Sound's song, 'Jet Black Dress'

(She doesn’t know what to say.

Not that it would matter much to a slab of marble. Or to the date etched into it. Or the epitaph. Or the name. It’s a ridiculous tradition, she thinks, to speak before the dead. As if they can hear them – hear her.

As if he cares.

She thinks back to the laughter filling their house late at night when she’s supposed to be asleep; to the notes with words of encouragement scattered about when she was starting college; to the look in his eyes and the easy (too easy) smile on his lips and thinks, _He did_.

But she thinks to the empty seats, to the absences and excuses and how her mother shook her head, lips curling down sourly; she thinks to the apologies that ring just a tad too much like routine; to the nondescript office, to the red and the gun and the cold disk and thinks, _he didn’t._

And still. And still. And still. And _still._

And still her throat clogs at the words tripping over themselves to get out, words half formed and mismatched and hollow. So hollow they might just evaporate before her lips, barely leave a stain on her lipstick. Dissipate before he even has a chance to register them let alone hear then. Wouldn’t that be a waste of energy?

So she sits there, skirt stained with dirt (thankfully she doesn’t really like this one; doesn’t work well with her hips) with Smithers staying close by, and says nothing. Honestly Veronica doesn’t feel up to keeping it cordial even if she found unsaid words.

_Maybe next year, papi._ )

\--------

They tell her in no uncertain terms, time and time again until she can recite it while piss-ass drunk at 3 in the morning – _we are not your siblings, we are not your family._ And they say it with a tone hiding no amount of distaste, borderline disgust; with faces kept firmly in check, with mask not unlike the mannequins Betty’s forced to spar with. Some spit the words out like venom, like they’re being poisoned by keeping them in.

Like they’re a foolish thing to want.

_We are not your siblings. We are not your family._

She doesn’t pay it much attention at first, doesn’t comprehend the depth of the words until she finds Mrs. Grey looking sadly at a picture frame on her desk. Betty doesn’t understand why Mrs. Grey is worried over her son’s upcoming trip, doesn’t understand why it hurts her that he’s leaving so much. (For the only pain she’s known then was the physical pain accompanying a punch or a slash or a stab.)

“Well, consider it like this. What if Polly decided to move?”

“But she can’t,” Betty says automatically, eyes still glued to the picture frame. She doesn’t dare touch it, afraid it’ll break.

“True. But imagine that Mister H sends her away.”

It’s an indescribable feeling, this pit that forms in her stomach, spreading to her chest at the thought of never seeing Polly again. Indescribable and all consuming, and it _scares_ Betty. More than anything they threw at her. More than when Polly came from technique training with a bloody face and gritted out curse after curse.

The feeling’s stayed with her since, slowly hiding away in the back of her mind, popping up from its hiding spot when she lets her thoughts wander, stays until she feels the restlessness rise up against it. Sometimes it feels like it’s summoning the restlessness, whistling until it comes forth like ever-obedient puppies.

_We are not your siblings. We are not your family._

“Hey, Pol?” Betty asks one calm night, with both of them sitting in front of the aquarium. Polly hums but continues to pick at the carpet, poignantly mellow tonight. Then again it’s the night before her first mission. Even Betty’s feeling nervous.

_“Imagine that Mister H sends her away.”_

“Betts?”

“You’re like a sister to me,” Betty blurts out before she changes her mind. She’s met with silence, not even the sound of Polly scraping the carpet greets her words. Her fingers curl into fists where they rest on her feet. Her eyes follow the little turquoise fish as it makes its loops. “You know that, right?”

She doesn’t know what she’s scared of more: Polly’s answer, the possibility that it could ruin whatever thing they’ve cultivated since – shit, since _forever_ – or the sad, unreadable stare she’s shooting Betty’s way.

At a tentative smile, as small as it is wistful, Betty’s chest feels lighter, freeing that breath she unconsciously held, and her fingers sting less where they’re digging into her skin.

“Yeah, I know.” And Polly chuckles, shoulder shaking with the abrupt movement. “You’re as close to a sibling as I dare to hope, honestly.”

And it’s right there that Betty dares to think – _screw them, I don’t need a family, don’t need their family if I got Polly._

Oh, isn’t that a bold, dangerous thought?

\------------

But then, years later, she almost loses Polly – to stupid, exotic plants she can’t pronounce on a good day, let alone fidgeting in the ward’s waiting room, staring at the soundproof windows while the nurses tend to Polly.

(She nearly screams it at the doctors – _save my sister!_ Her teeth dig into her lower lip at the last moment, and she swallows it down like bile mixed with blood, throat burning and sticky.)

And she doesn’t lose her, thankfully.

And then she loses her again – with the words, _I can’t stay_ and _I can’t ask you to come with me_ and a final _take care, Betts, yeah?_ And as much as Betty wants to go after her, to follow the only person she’d dare call family in the Organisation, she – she can’t bring herself to move. For all the times restlessness has forced her to act, it rears back tenfold and chains her to the spot, like a god of old from Max’s stories – chained to ward off storms as punishment.

So she stays there and watches as it all falls apart. Stays there with the pieces, unrecognisable pieces.

_Breathe, Cooper. Breathe._

_One. Two. Three._

_We are not your family._

“Screw you.”

\-----------

It starts with an innocuous question about how Veronica’s mother is doing since: a) Veronica’s been getting less phone calls from her and Smithers for the past week and a half; and b) Hermione’s been keeping their randomly (she’s not exaggerating) scheduled lunches excessively short. Betty might be a bit worried for her – Veronica has gotten her workaholic tendencies from somewhere right?

And Betty spent a month masquerading as a waiter in a restaurant chain to get a good feel of the manager’s routine before she killed him and dumped him in the freezer. It was chaos to say the least. (Made her wish for the specific chaos that is Reginald Mantle over _that._ ) She can imagine what it looks like for a higher positioned manager.

Never mind that it’s still a foreign feeling, an underdeveloped instinct – to worry about someone other than herself, other than Polly, other than Veronica. It took time for her to admit she worried for Veronica not purely for professional reasons. Took her longer than it should honestly.

But it’s to be expected, isn’t it? This worry, the little pinprick of a voice that urges her to ask about Cheryl when she’s being particularly snappy; to check up on Andrews from time to time and make sure he’s not been reduced to a mixture of chemicals; hell to even suggest meeting up with the Pussycats for coffee whenever they’re free.

Sometimes the feeling is annoying. But…. Well, it comes with having friends. Doesn’t it?

_Friends? People like us don’t have friends, Cooper. Not long enough for that to matter, anyway._

“Busy,” Veronica says not looking up from her reports. And Betty shrugs, looking back at the chess board with its sparse number of pieces. She’s gotten better but Bianca still clears her side of the board so quickly.

It’s thanks to the sparsity of the board that she catches the tilt of Veronica’s head, catches the movement before Veronica huffs in irritation. The way Veronica’s looking at the ceiling, tapping her pen against the reports means she’s got something else to say, but is hesitant to.

Normally it’s an open invitation for Betty to prod further. But this isn’t normal. She’s purposefully avoiding Betty’s gaze, chewing on the inside of her cheek and… seems so closed off, so much like Veronica under red neon lights at 3 a.m.

So much like Miss Lodge.

So Betty moves her rook in to threaten Bianca’s knight, and leaves the words unsaid. If Veronica wants to talk about it, she will. At her own pace.

\-------

It actually starts with a late night text from Smithers, and when it starts with _not to alarm you,_ Betty lowers her bowl of macaroni down, very much alarmed. (Bowls are the only clean dishes left in their apartment. Neither she nor Polly have gotten to washing them. She’s _this_ close to playing ro-sham-bo for it.)

(Never mind that their track record for that is 39-37 in Polly’s favour.)

The rest of the text doesn’t abate Betty’s nervousness, since it’s basically warning her that there might – _a very small chance certainly –_ might be a robbery happening the following night at the Lodge residence. The same night Veronica’s mother has to leave on a two-day trip to the next city to oversee renovations for one of the restaurants there. The same night Smithers won’t be there because he’s obviously going with Mrs. Lodge, despite her articulate and exasperated protests.

Smithers’ answer was a very pointed look, carrying the weight of all the years of working with the Lodges.

And beneath all of that, wedging itself between her worry for Veronica, her worry for Veronica’s mom and her irritation with Smithers’ vagueness about the whole ordeal, there’s a voice ringing two large bells and shouting _this isn’t a coincidence, no way in Hell is this a coincidence._

Smithers, damn him, isn’t providing any more details no matter how many texts she sends. Betty’s honestly contemplating calling him just to yell him into submitting anything, any more credible reason other than a flippant _Call it a gambler’s hunch._

_Screw you and your gambler’s hunch, what is going on, what aren’t you telling me?_

_“As I’ve said, Miss Cooper. It’s a hunch,”_ Smithers says over the phone, low and calm, as if he didn’t insinuate that there’ll be a robbery. Meanwhile Betty’s pacing is sure to leave a dent in the living room parquet. She’s steadfastly ignoring Polly’s quizzical glances. (Or how she’s stealing bites from her bowl.) _“Dinner probably didn’t sit well with me. Mrs. Lodge decided to experiment with seafood again. I didn’t mean for you to get upset.”_

“If gas makes you think there’s a robbery happening, then I don’t want to know what you think when you have possible diarrhoea.”

The choking sound Polly makes is loud enough for Smithers to hear. Betty stops her pacing right next to her armchair, switching hands so she can punch Polly on the back. She stops once Polly waves a hand in the air, coughs subsiding.

“You good?” Betty shifts her phone away, looking down at Polly. She gets a thumbs up, followed by a croaky _“fucking olives.”_ Betty opts to leave her hand on her back a little longer, moves it in soothing patterns until Polly straightens.

Smithers has apparently waited for her to finish, in that offputtingly polite way he does anything. No seriously. Betty could spend a year’s worth of lunches and dinners with him and the Lodges and she’d still find it off-putting. (He probably does it on purpose, too.)

_“To answer your question – Conspiracies,”_ Smithers chuckles menacingly once Betty moves the phone back. It’s awfully familiar in a way; reminiscent of how Polly gets once they start talking about old jobs.

It’s what makes her end it at that.

\----

The more pressing matter hits her one hour after the whole thing. After Polly loses the best of five rounds of ro-sham-bo and is being petty about it by washing the dishes as loudly as possible. After she wrestles with Furball over her towel because he’s started claiming them as his own little blankets, never mind that he has two very lovely blankets already.

(They spoil him. Though not as much as Veronica.)

It hits her just as she’s stepping out of the shower.

_Why didn’t he say anything to Veronica?_

He might’ve said something. Or she might’ve figured it out. Betty’s been in her employ for – 7 months, 8 months? Let’s say over half a year and sometimes she gives Betty a knowing look that gives her a brief pause. Smithers’s worked substantially longer that it’s hard to imagine Veronica not noticing him hiding something. If that were the case, Betty has another, more serious problem at hand:

_Why didn’t Veronica say anything?_

\-----

It keeps her up that night, slithers into her dreams when she does manage to fall asleep and greets her with every jolt.

It’s shouldn’t, truthfully. Betty’s used to secrets, has them in spades and has inadvertently hogged them over the years, has had them shoved into her blood, whispered into her ears that at one point she didn’t know what were her _own_ secrets.

It shouldn’t bother her because hasn’t she done the same – kept the hit on her from Veronica until the woman brought it up in no uncertain words? Sure she argued that it was to keep Veronica relaxed during their vacation, but the effect was the same. Veronica might have the same reasoning, so really there’s nothing to be bothered about.

But after the third jolt out of her dreams to find Furball curled up next to her face, Betty can’t deny that it _is_ bothering her – the (stupid, irrational, persistent) idea that Veronica’s keeping this a secret from her. As she stares at the rising and falling orange fur, she couldn’t tell you exactly _why_ it’s bothering her so much.

_Because it matters, Cooper._

It doesn’t help her sleep any easier.

\-----

She doesn’t bring it up the next day. Stubbornly waits for Veronica to bring it up.

Except as morning shifts into midday morphs into the early afternoon, it is slowly dawning on Betty that Veronica isn’t going to bring it up. She has had time to, in between reading reports and approving (or not) invoices; Betty’s given her ample opportunity to segue her way into that particular topic.

The fact that Veronica hasn’t even twitched into that direction – she’s bitten her lips and repositioned her glasses countless times, but those are her fidgety tells, which she gets whenever she’s dealing with drilling paperwork, not her _I’m sitting on something_ tells – it calms the rattling at the back of Betty’s mind. Yet there’s still the part of her – the one taught to distrust everything and everyone – that keeps whispering _doesn’t mean anything, doesn’t disprove shit._

And Veronica doesn’t deserve that.

She can’t sit idly anymore. She can’t even concentrate on chess long enough to last her 15 rounds against Bianca. It’s a small blessing that today is Veronica’s weekly ‘Take Care of the Garden’ day. It shouldn’t be a weekly thing, Veronica said some plants need water every other day, but she takes what little time she’ll allow herself for distractions, and delegates the rest among Bianca’s ternary processes.

And it still hurts, despite her inner turmoil; hurts that Veronica thinks of any activity that gives her a moment to stop and breathe a distraction.

Working in the garden helps – though there’s not much to work on. The dome they’ve set up to keep the plants safe and healthy through the winter has actually paid off, and with how the temperature’s rising they should start putting it away so the plants can have real sunlight again. Even the music – set on a radio station that’s playing old jazz songs Betty remembers listening to as a child – helps her not think about the possible robbery, not think about whether Veronica knows about it.

It helps until it doesn’t.

“I got a text from Smithers –”

“Someone tried to rob the resta–”

They both start at the same time, then both stop, looking at each other from either side of the large tree they were moving; looking as if they’ve been caught doing something they shouldn’t. Veronica with her hair mussed and falling out of a hasty ponytail looks utterly adorable and apologetic at the same time that it brings out a laugh from Betty. That in turn makes Veronica join in.

It’s a small miracle how quickly Veronica’s laugh – be it crisscrossed with small snorts or a continuous melody – manages to calm Betty, no matter the situation. Then again Veronica Lodge is a small miracle all on her own. A miracle Betty can get lost in.

“So,” Veronica coughs and Betty’s suddenly aware that she’s been staring longer than necessary. Thankfully Veronica chooses that moment to stand up so she misses the blush warming Betty’s cheeks. “You mentioned Smithers?”

“Yeah. He mentioned there’s a slight chance of a thief in your apartment tonight.” Veronica stops at the table, slowly looking over her shoulder as Betty straightens. She’s alarmed – _so she didn’t know –_ but she looks like she’s been expecting something like this. With their line of work it’s hardly surprising she’d get used to things like that.

“How slight? Gimmie numbers, Betts,” Veronica asks. Then she scrunches up her face and amends, “Actually forget about that. I didn’t like statistics and I’ve had enough of numbers for one day.”

“So you don’t want to hear it at all or just in probabilities?”

“I want to hear your take on the likelihood of it. Preferably numbers-free.”

“My take.” Betty walks over, thoughtful. As if she hasn’t spent last night thinking about it, fruitlessly. “I dunno, Ronnie. How accurate are his ‘gambler hunches’?” Betty adds air-quotes, earning a snort from Veronica.

“I laugh but they’re accurate 8 out of 10 times.” She tilts her head, ponytail swishing with the movement. Despite the brief frown, no doubt because she used number for that comparison, she’s got a fond if considering look. “It’s ironic in a way.”

“How so?”

“Well,” Veronica intones, leaning back against the table. “Smithers likes to gamble on occasion, despite how he guesses the odds right 2 out of 10 times. Mom said it was far worse when dad found him.”

Betty hums, crossing her arms before she realises they’re covered in dirt, leaving dark smudges along her arms. She turns to find the cleaning cloth, a tattered little thing in the box of supplies they forgot on the table from last time. They were otherwise preoccupied, mind.

“Does it have something to do with the robbery you mentioned? At the restaurant?” She asks, because a) she hasn’t forgotten about that, and b) if she doesn’t focus on something else, her mind will wander back to _why_ Veronica and she were preoccupied last week. Not that she minds that – _not that she spends more time thinking about heated make-outs with Veronica_ – but there’s a time and a place.

Veronica sighs, long and hard, drawing Betty’s attention.

“Attempted robbery. Then again mom could be lying about that, too,” she grumbles, voice harsh and holding an alarmingly familiar dark quality. Betty quickly wipes her hands, doesn’t care how it pulls at her cuts and blisters. As soon as she’s done, she’s moving closer to Veronica, hands rubbing her shoulders in steady patterns. Within a few breaths she’s scared away the dark look in Veronica’s eyes.

“Why would she be lying about this?” There are a lot of things Betty could question about Hermione Lodge, but one unwavering thing is how honest she’s been from the get-go. Okay maybe not blatantly honest but her words are fairly easy to read, and both Lodge women have developed reading between the lines into an art. Surely if she’s being honest in front of Betty, she’d be honest with her own daughter?

_Like how Veronica shouldn’t be keeping secrets from you? What’s that, is it the hypocritical alert?_

That was paranoia. Instinctual paranoia and nothing else. It doesn’t leave for anything else. Doesn’t really need to, just look at how deep it runs, how quickly it festers upon the first little pestering bug of doubt.

“Because I had to find out about it from a text. Which I wouldn’t have even seen had she not forgotten her phone this morning, and I had to take. It. To. Her,” Veronica huffs, stopping herself. She pinches her nose, breathing in and out slowly, as she’s wont to do after problematic clients. All that’s missing is – ah, there it is, stiff shoulders. This definitely isn’t the first time Veronica’s thought about this, not with the way it’s eating at her.

Betty draws her close, rests her chin on top of wild tresses. She rocks them lightly, somewhat in the rhythm of the song, when Veronica wraps her hands around her waist. Betty draws circles along Veronica’s spine, pressing her fingers firmer between her shoulder blades. It goes on like that until Veronica sags, until she exhales into Betty’s collar.

“She’s hiding something. I just know it, Betts,” Veronica murmurs into her collar, but it holds no less conviction than when she decided to make this network; no less than when she announced their vacation.

_No less conviction than when she said she wants you._

The thought sends a shiver down her spine. Veronica’s fingers still where they were tapping against Betty’s waist in time with the music. But before she can ask anything, before Betty can change the subject, Cheryl’s voice booms from the door.

“I hope you two are decent out there.” Veronica snorts, so hard Betty feels the vibrations. Betty turns to see Cheryl walking into the room with a hand covering her eyes. And somehow avoiding both the chair and small table next to the door.

What was that Polly joked, only not really, about Cheryl having magic?

“Why wouldn’t we be decent?” Betty asks, deadpan. Cheryl just waves her tablet in their general direction, scoffing.

“I’m not taking any chances. Not after the scene Polly stormed into.” A proud smirk stretches over Cheryl’s face, as if she knows that Betty’s face is heating up, that Veronica’s is too, judging by the heat on Betty’s collar.

“It happened once.”

“And we haven’t even taken any clothes off that time,” Veronica adds helpfully, having pulled away enough to see Cheryl. Veronica briefly casts her eyes on Betty, long enough to raise a brow at the incredulous expression Betty’s making. In a split second, Veronica lunges up with her arms, and yanks Betty down so their lips crash together, muffling the alarmed sound Betty made.

And it’s telling how easy it is for her to lose herself in Veronica’s lips – in _kissing_ Veronica, that she forgets Cheryl’s there. Just between you and her, she’d rather stay lost.

“You two are silent – all right, break it up. This is actually important.” Cheryl claps her hands, sharply. It’s grating enough to pull them apart, though Betty notes the small puff of air on her lips as they do.

Cheryl waits a second, as if to make sure they aren’t going to start making out again. Which – tempting. Betty might just do it out of spite. “What is so important you needed us decent?” she asks instead.

“The Bentoli target.” Cheryl unlocks her tablet, and hands it over to Veronica. The usual find incriminating evidence and expose him kind of job. Except this one’s got a big paycheck dangling at the end of it without raising any red flags. Which is a nice change.

“What about him?” Betty can make out some of the report over Veronica’s shoulder, but she’s concentrating more on Cheryl. Reading reports, Betty’s found, is much like writing them – a gruelling task with a headache at the end and a wish to do something with her fingers.

“He’s offering triple whatever our client’s paying.” Cheryl crosses her arms, looks briefly to Betty but keeps her gaze firmly on Veronica. Watches and waits to see what Veronica’ll say, but Cheryl’s not being entirely detached from it all, like she usually does regarding business. Shoulders are tight for one, and her eyes refuse to stay on one spot.

“You don’t trust him,” Betty says at length. A number of things could trouble Cheryl, sure, but the two most notable spots her eyes land are Veronica and the tablet.

“Taking a chapter from your book – oh wait, that’s just common sense. Never mind.” Cheryl raises her brow. She throws a proud smirk Betty’s way, but it quickly shifts into an unamused frown. “I wouldn’t trust any of our targets. Especially one so ready to sell his own bosses’ skeletons.”

“Self-preservation is a thing,” Veronica hums, looking up from her tablet. She makes one of her sickeningly sweet faces. “So is cowardice, selfishness, a fear of death and professional ruin, and the, oh so lovely yet frowned upon reflex of bribery. I thought you were familiar with them, Cheryl.”

“Please I practically defined the last one,” Cheryl scoffs, but there’s a smidge less pride than Betty expects. Perhaps Cheryl’s not too proud of using bribery; though Betty can count on one hand how many times she’s heard of the redhead using it to gather their crew. If anything, Veronica’s the one always keeping the bribery card in her sleeve.

“We _do_ need information about the Woir Canstillio.” Veronica clicks her tongue, displeased. Betty moves her hand to the centre of Veronica’s back, her thumb instinctively dancing across her spine. The only outward reaction she gets is Veronica sighing slowly. (Her back’s still in knots, most likely still tense about the robbery.)

She gives the table one last cursory look. “Have Melody take him up on his offer.”

Cheryl raises her brows, giving Veronica her most dramatic incredulous look. Blink and she’s schooled it back into a more Cheryl-like incredulous look – reserved but still heated beneath the surface. It still screams _Are you out of your mind?_

“Calm down, Blossom, I haven’t lost my mind –”

“I hope not, because that’s the only thing working for you.”

Veronica blinks. Betty tilts her head, questioning. Cheryl stands her ground, unamused.

“Whoa, okay. Rude much. Completely uncalled for, Cheryl. In fact if we weren’t friends, I might’ve seriously considered you purposefully tried to hurt my feelings.” Betty’s not sure what fishes out an eye-roll followed by a small smile from Cheryl: the way Veronica’s voice takes on a (charming) lower lit, or the way she places her hand over her chest, matching it with an expression dipped in mock-hurt.

“As I was saying before you interrupted me,” Veronica continues, voice back to its normal, warm self. “We take him up on his offer. Check the information. If it’s legit, and the money goes through.” She shrugs. “We ruin him anyway.”

“And keep both clients. In a sense.” Betty hums, inclining her head. It’s almost textbook how she’d do it. String him along until he’s outlived his usefulness and, well, shoot him in the back. Quick and painless.

Her left hand’s itching just imagining it. She curls it into a fist, fingers digging into flesh, and breathes out. _You’re not there._

(Is this what it was like for Polly? To fight these thoughts these urges born from the simplest of conversations? Born from their teachings, reflexes in a way, to see a person and imagine all the ways they can go down? Imagine how useful that would be? To shove them all down and say _no. No, not today._

_Not ever._ )

“Betts?”

(No wonder she looked so exhausted.)

Betty feels a hand on her cheek, and flinches, minimally, before she can stop herself. She blinks and stares down at Veronica’s questioning brown eyes, stares at the small frown on her face. Breathes out and realises her hand has fisted into Veronica’s shirt. Breathes out and concentrates on the hand on her cheek, fingers ghosting along her skin.

“I’m fine,” Betty whispers. A quick glance around tells her Cheryl’s nowhere to be found, probably off to deliver Veronica’s decision. Betty hadn’t heard her leave. Troubling.

Veronica hums, in the light and short way she does when she’s not convinced of the fact.

“I am.” Betty pulls her closer, and before she can let her nerves get to her, she plants a long kiss on Veronica’s forehead. She stays like that for a moment or two, just letting the restlessness pour out and dissipate in the space around them. “It’s just familiar. The way you handled Bentoli. Reminded me how I’d handle it.”

“Probably quicker than I am,” Veronica chuckles. Her fingers are playing with the small hairs on the nape of Betty’s neck. It tickles. Betty doesn’t care, just buries her nose in Veronica’s hair, smelling a mix of her shampoo, perfume and the sharp, citrusy smell of the Daelevivs she trimmed.

“I suppose we should finish our discussion,” Veronica says, timing it right as the jazz song simmers down. The sigh accompanying it makes it abundantly clear which discussion Veronica’s thinking of.

But Betty’s sure there’s a better discussion to finish before that one.

She lets her hands slide down along Veronica’s back, deliberately keeping close to her spine. And if her fingers are particularly skittish along Veronica’s sides, she wouldn’t admit it for all the gold in the world. What she will admit shamelessly is how her fingers are teasing the ends of Veronica’s shirt, just over her belt; or how she’s deliberately keeping close to Veronica’s ear because that draws out a tantalising shiver.

“Well if you insist,” Betty whispers. Right on cue a shiver wracks Veronica, punctuated but a forceful slap on Betty’s back.

“Not that discussion,” Veronica admonishes but Betty can see that indulgent smile. She even leans back to get a better look at it. Veronica shakes her head. “If we start with that, we’ll never get anything done.”

“You make it sound like we aren’t capable of keeping it tame.” Betty quirks her brow curiously.

“Oh, that is a challenge. Growing difficult by the day, darling,” Veronica practically purrs the last part out, head tilted, eyes dark (so so beautifully dark) and lips curving into a smirk – the Veronica Lodge smirk. And Betty’s reminded just how much sway this woman has over her, to make her heart beat as it is, to make her fingers twitch hungrily, to snatch all attention.

_But you know that, don’t you, Ronnie?_

“But I’m referring to keeping it brief,” Veronica adds after a second. Her eyes glance at Betty’s lips, quick, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it move. Betty’s trained to pick up on that. And even if she wasn’t, she’s spent enough time with Veronica (enough and still not enough, not nearly enough) to pick up on that.

“I think we can,” Betty says with a conspirative smile.

\------

Spoiler: They don’t.

Bianca’s the one to break them apart, chiming in with her regular lunch warning. Disregarding the timing it’s actually a reasonable warning, given Veronica’s workaholic tendencies and Betty’s completely broken concept of time. But given how she’s interrupted them – Veronica situated on the table, legs wrapped around Betty’s waist and hands still in Betty’s hair, ponytail long since ruined, while Betty’s confident she’s left scratches on Veronica’s lower back because God, this woman knows how to rile her up –

Wait there was a point at the start of this.

Oh yeah.

Given the state both of them are, it’s understandable Betty’s a bit (a lot) miffed at Bianca. But she supposes she’ll have to content with a laughing, blushing Veronica against her neck to make up for it.

_Oh the tragedy, Cooper; however will you live?_

\-----

_“I might/will have to foil a robbery tonight.”_ Betty texts while waiting for Veronica to pick up her third coffee – “Last one I swear, Betts,” she had said.

She barely leaves the messaging app when her phone vibrates in three quick zips.

_“I’ll remember to feed the cat,”_ answers Polly. Betty snorts.

_“Remember to feed yourself, too.”_

_“I’m not you.”_

_“No, you’re worse.”_

_“Come off it.”_ Betty snorts, brow raised at the heat, but then another text pops up. _“And don’t break anything important while kicking ass. We still technically don’t have a first aid kit.”_

Both brows are raised. _“What about the one you bought a month ago?”_

_“…”_

_“You forgot, didn’t you?”_

Betty doesn’t receive an answer.

\------

You know Betty could count on one hand how many times she’s had to lie in wait at her target’s place to settle a job. She wouldn’t even need to use all her fingers come to think of it. Definitely would have two spare. In fact, it’s the same amount as the number of pinkie fingers Veronica raises once she’s drinking tea from a fancy cup.

One. A total of one (1) time, and that was purely as a professional courtesy. At the time, had she not gone ahead and thrown away all the weapons, and ruined practically all of MacGunnard’s furniture, she wouldn’t have walked away from that encounter.

Or limped away as it were.

(Looking back at it now, she thinks maybe she wasn’t supposed to.)

Waiting for the robber is sorta like that night, with three minor and one glaring exceptions. The minors are: a) the most glaring, she’s not in her target’s place, b) she doesn’t know for sure whether the robber’s coming through the window or through the door (but that just means she’s staying close to the living room), and c) the Lodges don’t have a lot of weapons to take into account; Smithers has taken what he needs and all the rest is locked behind a wall safe in his wardrobe. If the robber even finds it, Bianca’ll warn them before the robber can crack it.

The major exception is looking at her from her perch on the stairs, impatiently tapping her foot and stubbornly staying awake despite the hour and the allure of darkness. As stubbornly as she refused to let Betty handle this alone. Sometimes it’s as annoying as it is endearing – mostly the times it’s endangering Veronica’s life.

“Do you have to be all the way over there?” Veronica stops tapping her foot.

“Yes.”

“You’re no fun,” Veronica says with a voice that brings forth the image of Veronica pouting, and Betty has to bite her lip to stop smiling. And if she isn’t thinking about it, Veronica unlocks her phone screen, completely on purpose, and poses it in a way that has the light shining on her lovely, pouting face. She’s just fishing for smiles; Betty’s certain of it at this point.

“So you say. Then you contradict it.” Betty cocks her head to the side, even if Veronica can’t see it with that light in her face. “Makes a girl think you can’t make up your mind, Ronnie.”

“What can I say? You’ve got my head spinning, darling Betts,” Veronica says, flashing a smile that’s walking the line between smug and loving. Were she not keeping an ear out for their robber, Betty would take those four steps separating them and kiss that smile off her face. Just because.

It’s some small miracle that Veronica’s screen still has a timeout. Another minute and Betty would’ve said to hell with it and kissed her anyway. She flexes her stiff fingers for good measure, ignoring where they dug into her forearms, straight through the sweater. A finger catches on a loose string, and twirls it into a ball to settle it back with the rest. 

Silence stretches between them.

“Why is he late?” Veronica huffs. Not a heartbeat passes before it’s followed by the sound of footsteps, muted against the carpet, but very much noticeable once she’s close enough.

“Smithers didn’t give us a timetable,” Betty points out. It earns her another huff, this one followed by the feeling of Veronica’s forehead falling on her arm. It’s become purely instinctual – the way she frees one arm to wrap it around Veronica and pull her closer, and closer still until she feels Veronica’s breaths against her collar. Veronica’s fingers fidget with the sweater, pulling at the loose strings. Perhaps it’s time to switch to one of the other sweaters she’s got.

_But it’s the first she bought for you,_ a voice whines in the back of her mind, like it does whenever she thinks about the wears and tears in it.

“I don’t like waiting either,” Betty breathes out. Four hours of waiting grate even her nerves. The words soothes enough to still Veronica’s fingers, at least enough for them to remain at the hem.

Shuffling.

There’s shuffling in front of the door. Shuffling that shouldn’t be there because there’s only one apartment on this floor and, unless Mrs. Lodge and Smithers returned early. Which is as likely as Polly dropkicking through the window shouting she knows who Betty’s mother is. Still she waits for another sign.

Another sign like the soft beeping, no doubt a device to scan for an alarm.

She quickly untangles from Veronica, motioning for her to go to the stairs and remain silent – and it earns her a scathing look. She can’t see it but boy does she feel it at the back of her neck. The beeping stops. Something scrapes against the door handle, metallic and most definitely a lockpick. The intensity of the scraping – furious and somewhat jittery, born of nervousness – sends her sliding against her floor in her socks to save time. She catches herself on the coat rack, just shy of slamming against the wall and giving away her position. She flattens her back against it instead, timing just as the second click rings.

_Come on, as if he won’t look behind the door._

It was how she caught MacGunnard off guard. And then he promptly threw her off like a rag but, y’know. Details.

The third click is short but cuts through the air like a bullet. The door is eerily silent as it opens, not even a creak as it stops, like doors do. She supposes it’s a blessing, otherwise she’d have to strain her ears to hear the robber’s footsteps. Her hand feels for her gun, fingers pressing into the handle for a moment.

_One. Two. Three._

He pushes the door closed without a look back. _(Moron.)_

Betty’s behind him in a blink, quick to grab him by the arm and yank it back forcefully, sending the scanning device skittering to the floor. She twists it behind him, and presses it into his spine with enough force to make him stumble forward. He swings his free arm at her blindly. Betty leans back. The air shifts with the movement, and she waits a moment – two. In the span of a shout she has his other arm twisted around his own neck, a kick in the back of the knee brings him down so the arm’s damn right digging into his neck.

His initial shout ends with a helpless wheeze.

“The fuck?” is all he manages. He tries to free the arm against his back, but Betty tightens it, catching his thumb between her own and forefinger, and _tugs._ The robber chokes into his elbow.

“Wow you really must not be something to go down _that_ quickly.” Veronica moves from behind the staircase wall. As she does, the lights along the wall turn on, thankfully dim enough not to blind them. They cast Veronica’s shadow over the robber, and it does make her seem more menacing. Especially once she stops right in front of him. She gives him an once-over.

“Do you know whose apartment this is?” she asks sharply.

The robber shakes his head, and Veronica hums, thoughtful. Betty catches the edge of an eyebrow rising. He leans forward, trying to break her hold on his left arm. Betty yanks him back upright.

“Really? They didn’t tell you whose apartment you’re supposed to rob?” She chuckles, humourlessly. She takes another step, arms crossed, back straight and Betty can feel the cold of her glare rather than see it. “Lie to me again, and my partner here will start breaking fingers. A thief’s practically useless without proper fingers right?”

Betty hums in agreement. It sends the robber into a frenzy – desperately shaking his head and mumbling into his elbow. He writhes like Veronica’s signed his death sentence and, honestly, Betty didn’t miss this part of the job. Not in the slightest.

So she lowers his left arm, gives him the opportunity to breathe properly. His first breath is shaky and deep, and his right hand twitches with the movement.

“Lodge. Said to find the Lodge’s,” he breathes out quickly. He turns his head to get a good look at Betty, eyes afraid and curious. “Didn’t say nothing about a guard.”

“Who?”

He looks back. “Well this one twisting my hand, something fierce–”

“Cheeky,” Veronica cuts in just as Betty fixes her grip on his right hand, pulling the arm further back. “I meant, who told you?”

He leans on one side, and stays silent. Betty tugs at his thumb, testing the line between broken and not. A delicate line when it comes to fingers. One that she’s learned can be tested again and again until her targets break. It earns her a hiss.

“Answer the question,” she demands coolly.

“They’ll kill me, okay?” He inhales, back shaking as he does. “I spill the beans and they’ll kill me. Vanish. Poof. Gone just like that.”

Veronica squints at him, lips pursing. She looks away, then lets her eyes glance around the room, surprisingly casually. It makes the robber squirm on his knees.

“And how do they feel about failure?” Her voice is nonchalant, eyes stopping at the kitchen counter. When he doesn’t answer, she gives him her full attention, brow cocked up, lips thin. “Because you didn’t take whatever you’re supposed to. You barely got through the door.”

“Probably worse than breaking a few fingers,” Veronica adds once the robber refuses to say anything. He’s surprisingly stubborn. Or really terrified of whoever hired him. Not the worst case she’s dealt with arguably. “Thoughts, B?”

“Definitely something from the being vanished category.” Betty gives him a long, unflinching look once he snaps back to look at her. She doesn’t blink as his eyes cloud with fear, growing steadily unfocused as his lip quivers. She tugs at his left arm to get his attention, and inclines her head forward. “So you’re what people’d say truly fucked.”

He turns around slowly, fearful almost, and Veronica greets him with a sharp, charming smile. 

\------

The Navarro family.

The robber – Derek something-or-other that ends with an _ae_ – was hired by the Navarro family. The same family that owns three high-end casinos in just as many cities, one of which stands proud and tall and basking in spotlights in the centre of the city, practically demanding any sliver of attention you can spare.

The same Navarro family that has enough funds to contact the Organisation _twice_ and demand the best people they could get to “tie up loose ends.” It sparked talk among the halls, hushed, barely there but with how the Organisation was cracking at the time it didn’t need to be shouted to reach everyone’s ears – talk turned open secret that the Navarro’s have ties running deeper than casinos and gambling. Ties that, when you put them on paper in a bulleted list, you get the telltale signs of an organised criminal – well, organisation.

And apparently the Navarros have invested in stealing from the Lodge restaurants. Just because the Lodges are competition. Because of _fucking_ course the mafia family has dipped their fingers in the restaurant business. And they said the assassin business is tricky.

_“Huh, that explains things.”_ Mrs. Lodge leans back in her chair on the display. She tilts her head, looking thoughtful but definitely not surprised at the development. That is not the reaction either her or Veronica were expecting when they sat in the living room to call Mrs. Lodge. Betty expected at the very least a bit of a surprised look.

“Mom what the hell?” Veronica raises her hands, disbelieving and on the verge of shouting at the screen.

_“What?”_

“That’s a mild reaction to hearing a son –”

“Or daughter,” Betty interjects. Veronica gives her a sharp look, and Betty raises her hands placating. Still she inclines her head in challenge, trying to distract Veronica by giving her something else to think about. Keeping her this pissed while she’s tired isn’t going to solve anything.

“Or person,” Betty adds, calmly. “Shall we go safe and say person?”

(It’s a blessing Veronica hadn’t shouted at Derek the Robber the moment he told them the name _Navarro_. Betty had thought for a fleeting second that Veronica read her face, but no, the shock was quick and deep that it could’ve only been from her own knowledge of the Navarros.

She’s kept her anger in check – tightening her fingers, keeping her arms crossed, keeping her back straight. Betty doesn’t think she can do it much longer.)

Veronica continues to stare at her, eyes filled with fatigue and fire. After a second Veronica closes her eyes and huffs. She turns to the screen, leaning forward so much Betty’s quick to place a hand on her shoulder to stop her going _through_ it.

“ _Or person_ ,” Veronica corrects, “of a mafia boss is coming after you!”

_“You said they’ve sent people to steal from me, mija. Not come after me.”_ Mrs. Lodge stares back at her daughter unfazed. Smithers at least looks apologetic sitting next to her with his hands on his bent knees.

“She raises a fair point,” Betty says. It is a detail she may have sorta overlooked. She was more concerned for the state of Veronica’s phone while she called her police contact – _“So you’d be under protective custody. Or smuggled out. Whatever works.”_ He is the fastest option, with Mantle out of town.

“Hey, you’re on my side, B!” Veronica slaps her on the knee so fast it takes Betty a moment to register. Thankfully instead of and angry glower, Betty’s faced with one of Veronica’s dramatic pouts. Betty snatches the hand close to her knee, and gently knocks their shoulders together.

“Of course I am, V.” Betty gives her a small smile. Slowly Veronica’s pout lessens into a lopsided smile. The next bump of the shoulders Veronica meets with one of her own.

_“You two are adorable,”_ Mrs. Lodge says. The feed’s sharp enough for them to see her squinting, and it reminds Betty a mother pinching her child’s cheeks and cooing. And now that it’s in her head, her mind wanders to the image of Mrs. Lodge pinching Veronica’s cheeks and she has to bite her lip to not laugh.

“Don’t change the subject,” Veronica says, but her cheeks are darker than they were previously. The lights are dim enough for only Betty to notice, though she suspects with the pleased smirk Mrs. Lodge’s giving them that the woman knows her daughter’s blushing. Or suspects at least.

(As a mother, she’d have time to get used to such things, didn’t she?)

“How didn’t you know your competition is tied to the mafia?”

_“Let’s see…”_ She leans back. She’s looking up at the ceiling and pretending to think about an answer. Veronica scoffs next to Betty, familiar with the ruse. It is one of her favourites, after all. Smithers shrugs his shoulders helplessly.

Mrs. Lodge looks back to them, and starts ticking on her fingers. _“I was too busy running my business??”_

“This is part of your business,” Veronica points out through gritted teeth. Her mother doesn’t even blink at the interruption, but she raises her brows in acknowledgement. She ticks another finger.

_“I was too busy worrying about my daughter’s business?”_ Another tick. _“I was worrying about my daughter not sleeping properly.”_ Which is a legitimate concern, but Veronica has gotten more sleep during the past week than she usually does. And yes, it definitely has everything to do with her delegating more work Cheryl’s way, but the redhead has barely batted an eye at that and just shooed them out of her office.

“Mami.”

_“And,”_ Mrs. Lodge pushes on, grinning. _“I was already planning your wedding.”_

The _what_ now?!

“ _Mami!_ ” Veronica shouts incredulously, face heating up clear for all to see. Betty clears her throat, feeling the back of her neck heating up as well. She is way too tired to think about that, even as a joke.

_“The last one is false, by the way,”_ Smithers points out, as helpful as he can be while grinning at them. He’s not even trying to hide it.

_“Boo.”_ Mrs. Lodge smacks Smithers on the shoulder with the back of her hand. _“Smithers, let me have some fun! I barely see the both of them for longer than lunch. I’ve been sitting on that wedding joke for weeks. Weeks, Smithers,”_

_“I know you’ve been practicing,”_ Smithers chuckles and he quickly brings up a hand to hide it. But Mrs. Lodge’s already caught on. She narrows her eyes, arms crossed and leaning back.

_“Lies. Lies, mija,”_ she says but she’s still looking at Smithers rather than the two of them. By now Veronica’s hidden her face in her hands and sunk so low on the sofa, she’s ready so slide off and onto the floor between the table and sofa. She’s muttering something in her native tongue, but the only words Betty can make out are _“I can’t.”_

“Not to sound impolite.” Betty clears her throat and waits for the two – well, Mrs. Lodge really – to look at the screen again. Those two are capable of squabbling like an old married couple. (For a while she suspected as much, but Mrs. Lodge nearly choked from laughing once it was brought up. Smithers pointed out he’s very much not interested.) “But I think we should discuss why your mafia competition is sending people to steal from you instead of making wedding jokes.”

“What she said,” Veronica mumbles behind her hands. With a long exhale she shakes the hands away, sitting upright again, looking as if she hadn’t been wallowing for the past 5 minutes or so.

_“Aside from trying to sabotage me, it could be about getting any kind of headway.”_

Veronica waves her hand in the air, making an _obviously_ face.

Smithers tilts his head to the side. He snaps his fingers and gives Mrs. Lodge a side look. _“Didn’t you piss her off at the gala last summer?”_

Oh wonderful, that’s motive right there – wait. _Her?_

_“No, those were the Rigovechi trio.”_ Mrs. Lodge snaps her fingers and leans forward conspirative, looking ready to spin a tale. Or spill juicy rumours with some bordering on scandalous. Somehow the woman’s got them in spades. _“Betty, have I told you about that? It’s was glorious.”_

“And a long story,” Veronica points out, voice deep and words slow.  

“For another time, then. Smithers mentioned a _she_?” Betty leans forward, hands clasped below her chin and elbows on her knees.

_“Unless she’s switched it up recently, yes. One of the daughters is running the Navarro’s restaurant.”_

_“And to cut you off,”_ Smithers raises his hand, halting their protests before they even fully formed into words. _“We didn’t correct you because she might not be the only one behind these attempted thefts.”_

“Speaking of that itsy bitsy bother, how long has this been going on?” Veronica asks, eyes fixed on her mother.

_“A little while –”_

_“About two weeks,”_ Smithers interjects. Mrs. Lodge gives him a disbelieving look that Smithers counters with a stern look, gesturing toward the screen as if to prove his point.

 “All right.” Veronica takes a breath and holds it. Betty silently counts with her ( _one – two – three)_. Veronica exhales at _ten_ but she keeps her eyes closed, and stays so still Betty’s fingers itch to touch her shoulder and make sure she’s still awake. She reaches Veronica’s elbow, fingers skimming over the exposed skin, when Veronica’s eyes flutter open.

“Okay.” She blinks and nods lightly. “We can deal with this.” She looks at Betty, eyes searching. Making sure; silently asking for help. As if she needed to ask anyway. Betty’s ready to brave a stupid, freezing river for her if Veronica asked.

Betty bumps their shoulders together, eyebrow raised.

_“Mija, it’s nothing to worry about,”_ Mrs. Lodge sighs. She sounds tired. Despite all the excitement, despite the odd hours the Lodges keep, it is still half past two in the morning. Perhaps they should’ve called in the morning.

_Would you have waited if you all but knew your mother was hiding something serious from you?_

The answer’s at the tip of her tongue.

“Famous Lodge words,” Betty says instead, lips quirking involuntarily.

“I resent that, Betts,” Veronica snips back.

_“She has a point.”_

_“Smithers, I’ll ban you from the call,”_ Mrs. Lodge warns without missing a beat. Smithers gives her a confused look.

_“How can you ban me, I’m sitting next to you –”_ Mrs _._ Lodge shoves him off his chair and off the screen. The only sign that he’s all right is a brief _‘oof’_ as he landed on whatever type of floor they’ve got. Carpet by the sound of it.

Mrs. Lodge looks at them innocently. _“Oh dear me, he tripped.”_

“Incredible.” Betty shakes her head. Veronica snorts next to her.

“Yup. Well, I love you, mami. We’re dealing with this. Bye!” She motions to end the call before her mother even has the chance do anything more than to raise her hand in protest. Even Smithers managed to raise his hand in a wave as the feed dissipated. Veronica taps her fingers against the table, humming in three short breaths.

“That was productive.”

Veronica scoffs, fingers stilling. There’s a glimmer in her eyes. “You know what’s productive?” She unlocks her phone and draws up a circle with several broken lines criss-crossing in the over it. “Bianca, search for anything you can find on the Navarros. Down to the most hysterical tabloid articles.”

_“As you say, High Queen of the Pysay Realm.”_

Veronica furrows her brows. “I thought I changed that?”

_“Tech wiz Jones had to revert it back after a failed update,”_ Bianca clarifies lightly. Betty watches as the phone dims, wondering whether she has a nickname of her own and just doesn’t know about it. Then again she could simply ask Bianca. The AI’s courteous enough to answer.

“I bet he did. The ass,” she says but as she’s falling back into the sofa there’s a small smirk on her face. Something tells her Veronica’s already thought up of a way to get back at him for that. If she were less tired, she’d feel sorry for him. Instead the thing bubbling up her throat is a yawn.

“Come on, it’s not like you hate it. I think you’re secretly basking in the greatness.” Betty waits for Veronica to look over to give her a curious look, brow twitching. Veronica chuckles, leaning her head back into the sofa.

“I shan’t deny or give credit to such a ludicrous claim.” There’s a playful shine in her eyes and an inviting curve of her lips, completely unrelated to the dim lights and how the shadows fall over her yet emphasises her face. If ever there was a siren song more tempting, Betty hasn’t heard it, doesn’t even want to hear it. 

She’s perfectly happy to have Veronica drag her over and steal her breath away; to feel those same fingers slowly dance along her neck just to turn sharp and rake through her hair; to drown in her lips, to let the moans wash over her, and to hold her tight as if Veronica was the only thing keeping her afloat in the storm.

Betty can count on the hand the number of things she’ll never get tired of.

  1. Veronica kissing her



Truly it takes them bumping their foreheads together for Betty to remember where she is. And when that happens, of course the fatigue takes the opening, wrapping around her limbs like a vice. Though the way Veronica sags (or melts) in Betty’s lap, with her face in Betty’s neck, she’s been hit a lot harder. Hopefully fatigue delirium isn’t why she’s laughing in Betty’s neck, because delirious Ronnie is _worse_ than drunk Ronnie.  

“You all right there, Ronnie?” Betty asks, fingers sliding up and down her back. Which might be the drop to spill the cup and send Veronica to sleep. A whine fills her ears when she tries to stop.

“Peachy, Betts.” Veronica nuzzles Betty’s neck, to prove her point, as she moves to rest her cheek more comfortably against Betty’s shoulder. The hand not trapped between the sofa and Betty’s back is just below her neck, with Veronica’s fingers absently tracing Betty’s jaw.

“It’s getting late,” she says in the same leisurely manner as her thumb is making the rounds beneath Betty’s chin. Yet her words hint at a deeper meaning than some random observation while they’re cuddling.

“Early you mean.” Betty shifts so Veronica can slip her hand free. She feels fingers slip through her hair, searching for the loose hairband. Finding it, they slip it off in one fluid motion, dangling it so it hits Betty’s shoulder every odd flip.

“Tomato, to-mah-toe, Betts. What I’m trying to say is.” Fingers against her jaws still and press insistently, guiding Betty to meet Veronica’s gaze. Then the thumb strays to Betty’s cheek, and it really is distracting. “You should stay.”

Tempting – like a new note to foretell a different siren’s song, sinking in before the first breath and spelling your doom with each successive one. And the only thing keeping Betty grounded in the present is that thumb grazing her cheek – _left, right, left –_

“I didn’t bring any sleep clothes,” Betty points out after too long a pause. If Veronica noticed, she doesn’t say anything, choosing instead to scoff and straighten so they’re on the same level.

“Oh please as if you don’t know about the drawer full of clothes practically stamped with _for one Betty Cooper_. I mean what kinda girlfriend do you take me for?” She raises a brow, curious and daring in equal measure.

“Too good. Too –” Betty breathes out, chest hurting suddenly; barely keeping everything inside, and yet her brain can’t find the words to describe what it’s holding back exactly. She looks at Veronica – at the dark lines beneath her eyes, at the sharpness of her brows, at the warmth of her eyes despite the dark, at the shape of her lips, remembers the taste of them, the feel – remembers she’s allowed _to want_ and –

And _it’s too much._

“Everything really,” Betty whispers, not sure her voice wouldn’t shake if she raised it. The words taste different in her mouth. She thinks Veronica might figure them out with the way she kisses her.

\-----

Betty hadn’t realised just how big the drawer practically stamped for her is. There looks to be clothes for all four seasons, and in matching colours.

From her perch on the other end of the bed Veronica’s deliberately avoiding Betty’s questioning looks. So Betty drops the matter, snatching a pair of dark green sleeping clothes instead, soft to the touch.

When they slide under the covers, Betty tightens her arm around Veronica’s waist, and plants a kiss on her temple before sleep takes her.

\------

To continue Betty’s list of things she won’t get tired of:

  1. Waking up next to Veronica



Though in most cases Veronica’s already up and about by the time Betty wakes – fully wakes and not the lurch when she’s just below the surface of lucid and everything feels too blurry yet too sharp on her senses. But the mornings where she manages, half-asleep and mumbling incoherent words, to drag Veronica back to bed, and get a chuckle or a groan in return, or perhaps fingers playing along her arm – those have a special place in Betty’s heart, and warm her even on the coldest of winter nights.

Yet when her hand wanders and she’s met with empty sheets and a crumbled pillow, Betty jerks awake enough to crack open an eye. Once upon a time she’d be out of bed in the blink of an eye, nerves going in overdrive. Once upon a time she flinched at the slightest movement in her bed.

Once upon a time she’d hear the door opening and expect an attack.

Instead she’s greeted with Veronica in a fluffy, oversized sweater and a soft smile on her face.

“When’d you get up?” Betty mumbles, turning around so she isn’t nose-deep in the gap between their pillows. She’s rubbing sleep from her eyes, so she jumps minutely at the feeling of Veronica’s lips on her forehead.

“Not early.” Betty blinks to see Veronica sitting on bed, fingers inches from her hip, and head tilted curiously.

“My not early or your not early?”

Veronica narrows her eyes knowingly, brow twitching.

“Late enough for breakfast,” is all she says, as vague as her non-answers go. She leaves with a light slap on Betty’s hip, urging her from her cocoon of blankets. (Just because Veronica can warm her on the coldest of winter nights doesn’t mean Betty’s just going to shun blankets away.)

Betty stretches, cocoon unravelling in the process. Her hand happens to land on the night stand in the exact moment her phone vibrates in two quick successions. She swipes it off the table, blinking as the screen lights up and the spring green text spelling _Reminder_ and signed with _Bianca_ greets her like an incessant alarm clock.

_Shit._

\------

The Lodges don’t have a lot of family pictures – physical or holographic – around their apartment. Then again that’s understandable given the development of online storage and its security. What catches Betty’s attention is how few pictures already on display have all three Lodges.

It’s an observation that waves in her periphery whenever she’s at the Lodge residence. She stopped sparring it a fleeting glance.

Except today it practically hops on the kitchen counter while she’s putting honey in her tea, snatching more than a fleeting glance. There’s hardly reason for it – he’s been absent in episodes than span to several months, started as early as middle school Veronica says. Barely showed up for holidays or events, and when he did it was with presents aplenty. Compensation. Bribery. Distractions.

So why does she see the image of three Lodges in her tea – Veronica standing between Hiram and Hermione, brandishing her diploma with both confidence and relief? Why does she see not concentrate on Veronica by all three? Why does she see their smiles reflected in the liquid and think _something’s off._ So why does she think this was the tipping point?

And why is she spending a morning with her girlfriend pondering Hiram Lodge’s absences?

_You get three guesses, Cooper._

Betty stirs her tea, honey melting with each swipe. Once the water stills, her own reflection stares back at her, bleary yet considering. Betty brings her cup and a glass of orange juice to the table. Veronica’s scrolling through a lot of things on her tablet, and there’s a hologram of a woman sitting next to her coffee. Lillian Navarro if Betty heard right, eldest of the Navarro children.

“So we’re going to be spying on this woman?” Not taking her eyes from the hologram Betty slides the glass of orange juice toward Veronica.

“Yep.” Veronica doesn’t look up.

Betty takes a sip of her tea. “Just casually spying on the owner of the Navarro’s restaurant?”

“Uh-huh.” Veronica taps the table blindly for her cup of coffee. Betty moves the juice closer, between her coffee and her approaching fingers. Veronica takes it without even a glance.

“Just the two of us?” Betty raises a brow, more at the fact that Veronica’s blindly bringing the glass to her lips than at the suggestion they play amateur spies. _Definitely woke up too early, breakfast be damned._

“Well three’s a company –” Veronica takes a big gulp and Betty can pinpoint the moment where she realises it’s not coffee and the split-second decision to _not_ spit it out onto her table. She squints as she swallows, as if she’s swallowing lemonade without any sliver of sugar. Slowly she lowers the glass, then gives Betty a disbelieving look, mimicking the gif-turned-meme with its excessive blinking and shake of the head.

Betty takes a gulp of her tea, hiding her grin.

“It’s just orange juice.”

“How dare you Elizabeth Elizabeth Cooper.”

“Elizabeth Elizabeth?” Betty raises her brows.

“What’s it matter, it’s not like you _have_ one?” And she adds a quick wave of her hand, voice rising ever so slightly at the end. Still sour about that one. “But back to the topic of your lack of respect with my drink –”

“I’d rather we go back to how you want the two of us to _spy_ on a restaurant manager/mafia member. _Alone_.” Betty lowers her cup, fingers pressing into the rim, palm burning with the phantom sensation of their pressure. “Because that’s high on the list of _Do Not_ things to do. Right below standing in front of a gun.”

“It was aimed at you!” Veronica argues.

“All the more reason you don’t stand in between,” Betty stresses. Veronica looks ready to argue, shoulders rising and fingers tapping. In the end she exhales, taps something quick on the table and turns it over to Betty.

Betty’s looking down at a schedule. Or well half of a schedule given the empty spaces and _N/A_ s.

“Let the record know you’re being hypocritical, Betts.” In her periphery Veronica takes another swing of the orange juice, resting one elbow on her wrist and leaned back. “And it’s not like we can ring our agents to fly back just to help solve a pesky family matter.”

_Perhaps._ “You’ve done worse.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Gracious of you, Ronnie.”

“One of my many virtues.” Betty looks up and is greeted by a proud smile that’s bordering on dramatic; the empty glass reflecting light just so to bring out the shine in Veronica’s eyes and steal Betty’s words away.

She doesn’t find them before Veronica lowers the glass and urges them to head out less they miss Lillian’s first appointment: the ice rink.

(Later, while they’re braving the hassle that is Rishmae’s Street during the seasonal sales, Veronica’ll let it slip how Bianca crashed Lillian’s usual work station, rendering it as good as an unconnected bundle of old circuits.

Also later, when asked before a shop window proudly presenting a coat that barely resembles such with so many additions sewn into it, Veronica’ll wave her phone, bringing up the updates Bianca’s sending tagged as _Navarro L: phone._ )

\-----

The ease with which Lillian Navarro navigates the stalls surrounding the ice rink near the smaller Percivius park (Betty still doesn’t understand why they don’t just _rename_ the parks instead of having two Percivius parks and a bundle of navigation headaches,) speak of how often she’s there. Betty certainly doubts the grace and fluidity following her around the rink is a product of natural talent. It certainly helps with keeping an eye on her, despite the mass of people.

Then again given winter’s last breaths, who wouldn’t want to use the outdoor rink to its fullest?

Veronica Lodge apparently. She’s been glued to the east wall for 20 minutes already after her latest slip up (that wasn’t accompanied by a cute yelp. No whoever would say such a thing?) She’s holding the rail in such a death grip Betty knows her knuckles are white beneath her black gloves.

Betty glides next to her, turning to stop in front of her in the same moment she takes Veronica’s free hand. She casts a glance above Veronica’s shoulder, noting where Lillian’s doing a short spin. Her eyes land back down onto Veronica’s red shawl, wrapped curiously tight around her neck and covering her mouth.

“You all right in there, Ronnie?” Betty asks, row quirked and fingers already moving to lower the shawl so she could see those lips.

“You know me, I simply adore braving the ice on two thin slabs of metal that are sharp enough to cut through your palm.” She wrinkles her nose. “Truly amazed I haven’t done this sooner.”

“It’s not all bad.”

“My butt begs to differ. And my pride. And my dignity, let’s not forget my dignity.” Veronica punctuates each sentence with a tap from their joined hands, pressing them firmer against Betty’s chest. Betty presses her lips together, moving closer while her eyes find Lillian again – gliding backwards near the centre of the rink.

“I suppose I should formally apologise to all offended parties.” Betty looks back, tilts her head inquisitively.

“That would be the right thing to do, yes.”  Veronica nods, not even bothering to hide how giddy her smile’s become. Briefly her eyes stray to someplace to Betty’s right, returning within the span of a blink.

“And what do the wounded parties think of compensation?” She receives a hum, brown eyes growing curious. Permission enough she supposes.

Betty moves backward, tugging on their joined hands. Veronica shakes her head and is quick to tug back, fingers digging into Betty’s hand, the other hand sliding along the rail until she tightens it into a vice, an anchor.

“Falling thrice is more than enough for one season, thank you very much,” Veronica snips, moving her shoulder to move her shawl closer to her neck, as if it wasn’t bundled up tight enough.

Betty felt a pang of disappointment seeing Veronica so insecure on the ice, seeing her fumble like a foal. Some part of her assumed – rather boldly – that Veronica held so much grace she would be a natural at skating; would easily follow Betty in her laps. Another part squashed that disappointment, citing how unfair it is to expect something like that of Veronica when Betty herself only felt calm on the ice from all the skating practice taken at odd hours in the Organisation and after.

On the other hand it had been a treat to teach Veronica the motions. A surprising treat at that, up until Veronica fell on her behind the third time and decided enough was enough. Thankfully she didn’t shove Betty’s hands away when she tried to help her get to the railing. At least she hadn’t been _that_ mad.

Still a part of Betty – a selfish thing – urges (whispers to) her to try again. The same part makes her use her most ulterior move yet: she pouts.

“No! No, no, no. That’s cheating!” Veronica whines, and smacks Betty on the shoulder with her free hand. Her first mistake – Betty swiftly grabs it and tugs it closer, bringing it next to the other one, close to her chest. Her second mistake was glaring at Betty, because it gives her a perfect view of her pout – and minute by minute Veronica’s resolve crumbles, leaving only a long sigh.

“ _Cheating_ ,” Veronica enunciates but her voice lacks the bite, and her eyes are glued to her feet, watching the movement as Betty drags them into a mild slide.

 

Lillian Navarro doesn’t meet with anyone that day; doesn’t do anything suspicious either. Neither does Veronica learn to remain anything other than stable on her skates. Betty buys her hot chocolate to lessen this “huge” blow to her pride.

\------

Of the many things Archie is capable, useful but unobtrusive design isn’t one of those things. The first design of the invisible suit was clunky and downright hideous. The latter wouldn’t be such a problem if the suit didn’t flicker like a bad neon light when you changed the brightness of your surroundings.

Version 2.1. – _“2.0. overheated rather quickly and, well you’ve heard of Mantle’s hand, right?”_ – is a lot smaller than the original, an easier fit that doesn’t force Betty’s arms in a defensive position. Though it still feels awkward to walk in. Surprisingly it’s lighter than the previous one; allowing, should the need arise, to vault over obstacles with barely a sound.

Still the plates clinks against themselves with the movement, and Polly’s concentrating hard enough to hear it, head snapping to the approximation of Betty’s position, just a hand’s length off to the left. She moves in quick strides and Betty has to skip back to avoid her searching hands, in this peculiar form of tag Andrews’ got them running. Not that it’s not amusing watching Polly go to the completely wrong side of the room in search of Betty, while she’s actually standing closer to the windows – for detailed testing. Andrews made the suit with reflecting plates, providing invisibility by actually reflecting light aimed at you.

Betty’s not sure what they used to bribe Polly into this because, honestly, if you walked into the room, this whole thing looks ridiculous. The only saving grace for Polly’s dignity is the fact Veronica’s so engrossed in her discussion with Jughead – something or other about the Navarros’ personal data – that she doesn’t even bother poking fun. Apparently following Lillian all day up till her apartment was as fruitless to her as it felt for Betty. Well, aside from one detail.

“Okay. All right. This has grown old. Time for the big guns.” Polly cracks her knuckles, and Betty takes several steps around the sofa so she’s standing diagonally from Polly. There are several ‘big guns’ in Polly’s arsenal. Two of which demanded Betty run immediately and, well, she does have a relatively straight line for the door, just a small tank filled with purple liquid – which sizzles on occasion –

Polly claps her hands, eyes cunning and simply says, “Avad.”

“Rava-” Betty clamps a hand over her mouth, swallowing down the answer. _Goddamn her._ Using _that_ little game, knowing full well after training, after all the missions they’ve done together, it’s become reflexive to answer it. _Playing dirty._

Polly circles the sofa almost immediately, forcing Betty to ignore the purple tank, ignore the door and move to her right, moving closer to the soundproof glass, cracked from the latest mishap exploding.

“Avad.” Polly’s moving around the purple tank, width small enough that her outstretched arm would’ve caught Betty had she been there. She takes several cautious steps toward the cracked glass. For every step forward, Betty takes a step to her right.

“Come on, Betts, I know you’re burning to say it. Avaaaaad,” Polly sing-songs, grin turning smug. No, she’s not burning to say it. She’s not a child anymore, taught the principles of mission communication through a childish game of _Avad Ravans_.

Betty bites down on her lip to keep the words at bay. She’s so focused on it, muscles wound up tight and nerves on edge, that she forgets where she is as she paces away from Polly. Forgets that there’s a table nearby with tools and metal casings. Forgets there’s a lava lamp illuminating the table until her elbow catches on it. She turns to try and grab it, but the liquid changes colour from the impact – turquoise warming into amber. The lid comes loose and some of the amber liquid spill over her forearm and chest.

Effectively giving her away.

_Professional killer foiled by a lamp._

Betty’s shoulders sag, a deep exhale escaping her. A hand slaps her on an unstained shoulder, the motion jerks her forward so more liquid drips on the table.

“Found ya, Ravans.” Polly smiles, too pleased with herself. Betty presses the controls below the jaw of her helmet, turning off the invisibility. She takes off the helmet without much fuss, huffing at the few strands that escaped her bun and fell into her eyes.

“That was bullshit, Poll.” Betty glares, despite knowing how Polly’s capable of staring right back unflinching. Even flicks Betty on the nose, like she’s ten again and slipped up during their sparring matches.

“All’s fair in –”

“In a fight. I know.” Betty continues to frown. Somewhere behind them she hears Andrews shuffle, no doubt to check on the suit. Or maybe the lava lamp. He’s awfully fond of those. _Calming_ comes to mind. “Doesn’t mean I like you bringing _that_ up.”

“Bringing what up?” Veronica asks and somehow Betty hasn’t heard her approach, hasn’t even registered Veronica ending her conversation with Jughead. She does notice, however, that Veronica’s biting her lip furiously, brows drawn up and eyes giving her an once-over, catching on the spots covered in amber liquid. Which is beginning to smell. Lovely.

“The results,” Polly chimes in, eyes going from Betty to Veronica to Archie as he takes the helmet from Betty. He’s mindful not to touch the wet part, despite wearing gloves. “Andrews, if you please. I have work to do after all.”

“I’m sure Doiley can handle himself fine for another hour,” Archie says. He places the helmet on a stand, making the liquid drip onto grey dust, which Betty’s positive wasn’t there before. It proves right, when he takes another bottle of the dust and without warning shakes it all over Betty’s wet arm.

“With an attitude like his, one’s capable of alienating oneself from even the snobbish of rich people.” Polly goes to cross her arms, and flinches when Archie grabs her by the wrist. He’s lucky Polly learnt a large amount of restrain while on her pilgrimage (her words not Betty’s), less he’d have a bloody nose and a broken wrist. But the questioning glare he gets while dumping the same dust over Polly’s hand – same hand that slapped Betty on the shoulder – isn’t something to ignore either.

She waits for him to finish, before gritting out. “Andrews, what the hell?”

“Just a precaution. The dust should deactivate the liquid and render it nothing more than bad orange juice.” He closes the bottle, humming thoughtful. Then he shrugs, and moves to help Betty remove the suit. “In an hour you should wash it off with cold water.”

Betty supresses the urge to ask what is in the lava lamp if it requires dust to revert into _orange juice_. Some things she’s learned are best left unknown, especially when it comes to Archie’s experiments.

“An hour?” Betty asks, carefully sliding her arm out of the wet sleeve. She looks over his shoulder, noting that the lava lamp has gone to a sickly shade of green. Archie nods, tongue peeking out as he concentrates on the suit. Polly groans, muffled by her dust-free hand.

“All right. Okay,” she huffs, shoulders sagging. “Guess I’m cleaning up this place.”

“What? No, that’s not necessary,” Archie argues.

“You have a flight tomorrow!” Polly points out, raising her finger.

Archie blinks several times, breathing out a short, “Right.”

“Archiekins, if you miss another flight home, Cheryl will literally feed you your hair,” Veronica points out from leaning on the back of a sofa, having taken steps to avoid the dust. She claps her hands, leaning them against her black jeans. “Go home. Go pack. Double check your things. Whatever… else you do before a flight.”

Archie frowns, considering. It stays with him even when Betty’s left in only her undersuit and the invisible suit has been carefully deposited behind the cracked glass. He does leave after pointing out where he’s stashed Betty’s clothes, offering a wave to one of Bianca’s sensors. He didn’t even hassle them to make sure they’d return everything in its rightful place. Didn’t even insist they call him after the hour is up.

Betty narrows her eyes, fingers caught in untangling her shirt. When she looks over, Veronica has her eyes trained on the door, fingers stopped mid-type, and wearing a frown.

\-------

Betty is bad with dates. Calendar dates.

She remembers days by what most noticeably happened on them, but doesn’t bother with the dates of said days. Sometimes she can retrace them and figure the date out. However, due to a minor thing such as four months having 32 days and two having 29 days instead of the regular 31, it proves tricky. The lull in her freelance years – spanning several months before Cheryl sat across from her – it threw her internal calendar into disarray and she’s had little chance to piece it together. Not for a lack of noticeable happenings to mark the days.

It’s why she has reminders. Though it embarrasses her to say they’ve only grown really efficient due to a certain AI’s snooping into her phone. (And definitely in part because Veronica talks to Bianca like they’re old friends, which… actually they are, come to think of it. Huh.)

Why is she even mentioning this, you ask?

The reminder from this morning is that there are 7 days to their anniversary – hers and Veronica’s. And guess who forgot about it. Go on, guess. No, she won’t murder you if you breathe word of this anywhere _near_ Veronica. Why she’d never stoop so low.

(You’d just vanish.)

“What do you get a woman who can buy anything she wants?” Betty asks, staring at the two brands of cheese in her hands, trying to spot the difference that warrants such a high disparateness in price. So far all she’s gathered is that neither is very good cheese.

Polly gives her a strange look, glancing down to the cheeses in hand then back up. “Not… cheese?”

Betty raises her hands, making a _“Seriously?”_ motion with the cheeses. Polly shrugs, gesturing to their half full cart of junk food and some vegetables. They’ve come home to their cat-sitter – their closest neighbours, the Talahams, eldest daughter who actually returned Furball the first few times he jumped the balcony rails - announcing that they’re fridge is emptier and sadder than her brother’s literary essays.

So naturally they went shopping at nine in the evening with no notion of what they need or any semblance of a list. _“We’ll improvise_ , _”_ Polly assured. _“You’re good at thinking on the fly. Just redact all of the killing.”_

Betty returns the two cheeses, picks a random cheaper one and tosses it into the cart. “It’s a serious question, Poll,” Betty stresses, moving to get milk.

“Serious, okay. Serious answer, hm,” Polly hums. When Betty returns with the milk, Polly looks away from the stalls of dairy products, and frowns shortly, shoulders rising in a half-shrug. “Maybe she already got what she wanted?”

Betty isn’t impressed. “Polly, I have to actually buy her something. It’s our anniversary.”

“Oh.” Polly raises her brows, making an exaggerated face of surprise. It falls away as she straightens, and goes to muffle Betty’s hair, out of its ponytail for a change. She makes cooing sounds that bother Betty more than the hands through her hair. “Aww you’re actually doing a relationship. And it’s lasting.”

“Stop it.” Betty slaps away the hands, eyes darting to the two people in the same aisle, who’re steadfastly ignoring them thankfully. Then back to glare at a grinning Polly.

“Adorable.”

“Shut up.”

“And I am so proud.” Polly puts her hand over her heart, shaking her head dramatically and fake-sniffing. Betty’s struck with how similar it is to Veronica, and the question whether Polly picked it up from her, or whether she adopted it from one of the many persons she impersonated on her pilgrimage.

_Those things stick with you, even when you think you’ve thoroughly scrubbed them away._

(Or maybe it’s just Polly’s 12-year-old self surfacing. She did get like this when Betty commented on Phyla’s quick thinking. Doubly so when she caught Betty observing Roderick, never mind that Betty was trying to figure out how he dismantles weapons so quickly and not _him_ in general. No, because surely Betty had a crush and Polly had to tease her for it.

_“You said we’re family and what else am I to do in such a situation?”_ )

“You’re not helping, okay?” Betty shoves her shoulder, the back of her neck growing hot.

“Fine, fine.” Polly waves her hands placating, though her lips are twitching back into a grin. “Off the top of my head: gun?”

“She already has one and –” The image of broken glass, of Veronica crouching with a gun in shaky bloody hands and the horrid emptiness that consumed Betty’s chest returns. She shakes her head, shivering. “No. Pass.”

“Then a sword!”

“No.” Betty shakes her head furiously, matching Polly’s vigorous nodding. “Absolutely not. What would she even do with a sword?”

“Use it as a last line of defence. As an oversized knife. As a really cool prop.” Polly shrugs. “Just off the top of my head.” She bursts into giggles at Betty’s terrified look, more so when Betty whispers, menacingly, _“Don’t you dare!”_

They pass two aisles in silence. Well, Betty’s silent; Polly’s giggling under her breath. The ass. They’ve filled their cart with meat – real meat not the artificial stuff – when Polly suddenly turns to the aisle lined with toys and giant fluffy animals. Some are tall enough to engulf Betty without a trace.

“How about a plushy of your heart?” Polly holds out a large plushy of a cartoonish heart, turning it so Betty can’t read the inscription. No doubt it’s something sweet or romantic. That’s what goes on these things anyway. “Just maybe more realistic than this. Like an anatomically accurate rendition of your heart.”

“Oh my God that is both smart and horrible.” Betty wrinkles her nose, and gestures for her to return the plushy. The idea’s sound mind you, it’s just that a giant plushy seems generic and she hasn’t seen many saved up plushies around the Lodge apartment.

“You know this right here is why you get money for your birthdays.” Polly gestures to the entire aisle and the one young man actually perusing to buy a plush toy.

“You suggest I give money to a rich person,” Betty deadpans, pushing the cart away and toward the cashiers.

“No. I’m saying you’re picky. _Extremely_ picky. And –” Polly raises a finger when Betty glares over her shoulder. “I’m definitely _not_ the right person to ask about gifts for your significant other. I mean, have you even heard of me being in a relationship that required _that_?”

_Point taken._

\------

Sometimes Betty has dreams of what happened on the ship, with a few minor details askew as is wont of dreaming. The big differences were bled dry in the first month of her recovery, and she’s thankful for it. She’d rather not go through the ordeal of fighting dreamed up members of the Organisation while submerged.

She goes through the motions whenever that particular dream arrives, surrendering herself to reflexes and moves sharpened by routine, precise despite being thoughtless. And for the most part it works. For the most part it passes like fog; forgotten as much, too.

Except, you know those minor details that change?

Lionel’s one of them in this dream.

Or, more precisely, the way she kills him. It’s petty. Betty’s adult enough to admit that. It’s petty, it’s selfish, it’s cathartic – so bloody cathartic Betty would’ve gotten addicted from reliving that feeling. Be it punching him until her knuckles burn and his face is crushed in; be it breaking his wrist and shooting him with his own gun; be it strangling him with his own tie, watching until his face turns blue and his words die out, watching as his silver tongue melts and burns him from the inside out.

Be it dragging himself away from her, leaving a bloody trail where his knees have been shot out, bruises marring his face, dirt staining his impeccable suit. Be it Mister H finally looking rumpled, finally looking out of his element. Finally realising he’s in _her_ domain. Finally seeing what he’s made.

Cathartic.

Always he talks. The words change from dream to dream, depending on what part of his speech her mind’s fixated on. She doesn’t give him the chance to utter three words, bored or annoyed by his voice, his constant need to have the last word, the incessantness of his speech patterns. And she just might. Fucking. Hate. Him.

(A part of her, sadly, will be ever thankful to him. No for the training. Oh no, she has no doubts that were it not for his Organisation Betty’d have a normal life, y’know, a life that doesn’t necessarily include knowledge on how to torture someone while still keeping them barely there, on the crisp of death.

No, she’s thankful for the hate burning through her veins as she sees him, for the joy of his death, for the relief. For finally, _finally_ feeling something after killing.)

But sometimes she lets him talk.

“You’re an outsider!” he screams at her, blood and spit flying. “And we took you in. Don’t you get it? We took you in when no one wanted you. Without us – who’s going to take you now?”

He laughs as she raises the gun. Laughs like a man gone mad. In this version he looks the part as well.

“You think,” he chokes out. “You think _they’ll_ accept you? You –”

The bang echoes through the emptiness, eating up anything else he’s likely to say, leaving his venomous words to mix with his blood. Leaving them to echo in a whisper all around her, unless she drowns it out with her own voice, from somewhere deep and guttural.

Sometimes the dream doesn’t end with her falling into the river, bruised and bloody, and the lot of them dead. Sometimes it stops with Mister H talking. Sometimes she makes the mistake of listening to him.

\--------

Day two starts with them actually going to the Navarro restaurant, because it’s the perfect way to observe her in her natural habitat, _why didn’t we think of this before, Betts?_

With the way Veronica’s wolfing down those blueberry waffles (yet still managing to add a flare of elegance) Betty’s pretty sure they’re here for the breakfast desserts than actual observations. Not that she’s eating alone, but Betty’s at least keeping an eye out for their target, working at the counter. Betty’s actually surprised to see Lillian’s stepping in for one of her workers who’s allegedly running late, or so she’s gathered from the discreet whispers of zipping waiters.

She had assumed many a thing about Lillian Navarro due to her family and her family’s businesses, and maybe somewhere down the road of assumptions she’s forgotten to actually factor in Lillian Navarro being a person. A hazard of assassins – it’s easier to distance yourself from your targets, to know about them yet treat that knowledge as if it were a bulleted list on an abstract notion, rather than characteristics and routines of a person. It’s something she caught Josie doing as well, when she thought no one was looking.

But then Betty looks over to Veronica, who’s got a bit of jam on her check that makes Betty’s fingers twitch and her lips pull upward, and she’s reminded that a person can stray from the bulleted list, especially born of assumptions. She’s reminded people can surprise you in the most unexpected ways. (And breakfast seems to have warded off that glum look in Veronica’s eyes. She claims the talk with her mother, returned from her trip, went well, and the look she shot Betty made the blonde keep her tongue to her teeth sort to say.)

“What?” Veronica asks, wiping her hands. Her lips tug into an uneven smile, shifting the jam further along her cheek.

“You have jam right here.” Betty points to the stop on her cheek. The door flutters open, and Betty glances over Veronica’s shoulder to spot who appears to be the late worker practically sprint toward Lillian, hands flying in a flurry of explanation. Lillian just waves it all off and hands over the key card to the register. “Seems L’s moving her schedule.”

“Oh? Anchoring or setting sail?”

Betty takes a long swing from her tea, masking how her eyes follow Lillian as she moves to the storeroom right below the stairs to the upper are of the restaurant. She lowers the cup, fingers pretending to be engrossed in how her fingers play on the rim, and counts.

After two minutes, Lillian Navarro strolls out in her dark blue coat and size too big silver hat and goes right out the door. Betty follows her through the darkened window, eyes stopping on the two figures seemingly window shopping couches across the street. Seemingly because one of them looks over just as Lillian passes by and pats the other on the shoulder twice.

“Definitely sailing,” Betty says but Veronica’s already flagging a waiter for their bill. _And we might have company._

\-----

The good news is those two guys pretending to window shop aren’t after them.

The bad news is they very well might be after Lillian Navarro. They certainly didn’t show up at an animal shelter to buy a pet parrot.

The hopeful news is they don’t look like they’re planning on attacking her, which is fantastic because Betty really _really_ doesn’t want to fight them in an animal shelter. It’s too crowded with animals and easy to draw attention to themselves and then you have the police to consider. And Veronica just might be tempted to save all of the “cuties.”

Now Betty adores her, you understand, but she draws the line at carrying Veronica who’s also carrying several animals of disputable size and weight and snappy-ness. The number of times she’s heard Veronica squeal in the last half hour alone indicate she’d have her hands very full. (And no, we’ll not take into account how Betty has to bite her lip to stop smiling whenever Veronica coos at an animal.)

“Aren’t you the most precious bundle of spots?” Veronica coos at a fluffy bundle of black with white spots. The bundle quickly launches itself onto the rail, long, flag-like tail wagging faster than a flag in the wind. If he didn’t have his tongue out, Betty honestly wouldn’t know where the dog’s head is.

“We’re not here to adopt,” Betty reminds. He is cute though, and that could potentially be a good gift. But given Veronica’s tendency to share her animal custody, one orange wilful cat is enough, thank you very much.

“You are driving a hard bargain there, Betts. I mean look at all these cute little guys.” Veronica looks up, fingers still scratching the fluff’s head. “But –” she looks back at the panting dog, humming thoughtful. “None of them are as cute as Furball.”

“Some arguably are.” Betty gestures to several dogs and cats they’ve passed on the way in. Veronica’s quick to stand up, cross her arms, and glares good-naturedly, like when she finds something cute but ultimately false.

“No. My son is the cutest, most adorable little fuzz ball. End of discussion.” She goes so far as to poke Betty on the chest to punctuate every sentence. Betty snatches the offending hand when Veronica’s glare shifts to the window pane behind Betty, and her eyes grow as wide and the excited grin. Betty has half a mind to pull her back before she even registers the words “ _holy shit a dragon_.”

It isn’t. Though the lizard Lillian’s showing off to children is substantially larger than she’s seen in these parts, it’s still a wingless, not fire breathing, lizard. And he’s on a thick leash so nothing to worry about.

Except the familiar gleam in Veronica’s eyes.

“No.”

“We’re buying that dragon.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Absolutely yes.”

“ _Ronnie_.”

“ _Betts._ ”

\------

Really Betty should’ve known she shouldn’t have left Ronnie alone at the front desk after that stare off. But tailing Lillian takes precedent and Veronica did practically shove her after the woman. That… should’ve been a tip off, actually. _That smile is too distracting._

_Whipped._

So when Veronica finally joins Betty out back, discreetly sliding up behind a large chimera statue (it’s an old building) so she wouldn’t interrupt whatever conversation Lillian’s having with a clearly not delivery guy, Veronica’s holding a box. With holes. And Betty hears _scratching_.

She spares Veronica a disbelieving look, but snaps back to Lillian at the sound of a truck door shutting. Whatever delivery Lillian’s ordered, it’s done and the woman’s going back into the animal shelter. The not delivery guy is hauling crates toward an arts store.

“Guess this was a bust, Jimmy,” Veronica whispers, but with the deliberate high volume it can’t even be called that. Betty huffs, and looks over to find out what Jimmy is.

He’s a turtle. Veronica’s proudly holding a hand-sized turtle in her hands like it’s the most precious thing she’s showing. The turtle – Jimmy – just looks up at Betty, but she can’t tell whether he’s actually watching her or something in her direction. She can tell without really looking that Veronica’s got a smug smirk on her face.

“You got a turtle,” is all Betty can say.

“You said no lizards,” Veronica points out, curling a finger when Jimmy moves closer to the edge of her hand.

“That I did,” Betty sighs, rubbing her eyes. “What’s the turtle for, anyway?”

“Oh, nuh-uh.” Veronica shakes two other fingers, right in front of Jimmy so it looks like she’s scratching him. “I’m not spoiling the surprise.”

Of course she’s not. Betty hopes it’s not for her, as thoughtful as that would be. Cats are relatively independent and self-sufficient, but turtles are mostly confided in a glass cage and need more regular feeding than Betty’s schedule is affording her right now.

\------

Jason Blossom is wearing the same reaction one would expect when presented with a box clearly made for a pet out of the blue and before the expected _hello_. Confused. Surprised. Questioning. Except he manages to do that all with one expression and a tap on the box’s lid.

“Hello, Veronica,” he starts, voice dripping with sarcasm. “It’s nice to see you, too. We haven’t talked in _ages_. Days actually,” he whispers conspirative to Betty, then continues in a sarcastic drawl. “So nice of you to drop by and pick me up. Whatever would I do without you?”

“No doubt continue your life devoid of the wonders of owning a turtle,” Veronica declares with a flouring. She gestures to the box again, fingers dancing in the space between her and Jason, when it becomes apparent the redhead isn’t going to open his surprise.

“And what are the wonders of owning a turtle?” he asks, brow raised in challenge, splaying his hands over the lid carefully.

“Wonders like his size. He’s totally pocket-sized. And, and because of that, he can accompany you wherever you go. And he barely moves so you don’t have to worry about losing him. And they eat only salads so it’s basically the easiest pet to have.” Veronica finishes with a few nods, looking at Jason, then at Betty then back to Jason, with one final nod. Because she definitely nailed that.

“I feel most of that is bullshit.”

“Pure improvisation,” Betty adds. It earns her a smack on the shoulder. “But look at it this way, if Jason was a random guy you wanted to sell your impulsively-bough, Jimmy the Turtle to, he’d be already buying it.”

Veronica gives her a searching look, which would be menacing and certainly have Betty think about what else to add, if not for the distinct snort coming from Jason’s direction. That, Veronica decides, turning her look into a glare, is a greater offence of her person than Betty’s honesty.

“You named him _Jimmy_?” he asks, grinning wide and disbelieving.

“He looks like a Jimmy,” Veronica argues. She waves at the box. “Open the lid and tell me he doesn’t look like a Jimmy.”

Honestly Betty’s met only one Jimmy before and he died so quickly she barely remembers his face. Even with that she’s pretty sure that turtle doesn’t look like a Jimmy. But it does get Jason to actually open the box and pick up the turtle, turning him this way and that, as one examines a miniature figurine.

Finally he stops and turns the turtle to face him, humming softly. “I still don’t see it.”

“You know what – _fine._ Whatever. It’s your turtle so call it Sprinkles for all I care.” Veronica waves her hands in the air.

“You ready to go, Blossom?” Because that is the whole reason they came to Alsakov’s. Jason has finished with his weekly session and Cheryl sent a quick text to Veronica, and in true Cheryl style, passively-aggressively asks them to pick Jason up.

Jason seems like he wants to say something. He’s sitting on the words (no pun intended) during the short walk to the parking lot, and finally huffs in resignation once they’ve situated him in the passenger’s side.

“Thanks for the present, Ron,” he mumbles out, eyes fixed on the box. Somewhere between putting him in his seat and collapsing the wheelchair so it fits into the trunk, Jason’s moved the lid so the turtle – now not Jimmy? – is in plain sight. “Though I have no clue what brought it on.”

“Cheryl may have said something about you looking sour these past two weeks. Completely accidental, I think.” Veronica waves her hand, dismissing the whole thing. “Betty perked up after finding Furball, so I figured a pet’d do you some good.”

“So a turtle?”

“Betty didn’t want a lizard.” And yep Veronica’s still whining about that.

“You never said who it was for, Ronnie,” Betty points out.

“That’s fair. You’d have no clue what to do with a lizard,” Jason adds. He snickers at Veronica’s displeased look, but mirrors her fastening his seatbelt. Instead of hearing the car start up, the three of them are greeted with Veronica’s email notification, since she reflexively plugs her phone into her car’s radio.

She swipes at her screen, and her fingers are poised to archive the email for later when they stop and double tap to enlarge the text. She gestures for Betty to lean forward and mutters, “Am I seeing things?”

With a quick skim of the email, it’s easy to see why Veronica’s having doubts. It’s forwarded from Lillian’s work computer, intercepted and tagged by either Bianca or Jughead, sent by one of her restaurant workers. It’s a report that another piece of kitchen equipment has malfunctioned – the fourths one this month apparently, and that raises some flags. But Betty’s eyes stop at the second to last sentence, and she feels her fingers dig into her palm.

_You’re right, Miss Navarro; we’re being sabotaged._ – it reads. And neither Betty nor Veronica have anything to do with _that_.

\------


End file.
